4 Responses to “Learning From Each Other”

1. Randy Tullier
   February 23rd, 2009 at 11:32 pm

   1. What did you think about deafness prior to having a family member, friend, or colleague who is deaf? (Be honest.) First: My name is Randy Tullier, the proud father of Tate and his bride Sarah. Now #1 answer: I had come in contact with deaf people before. I have never had a problem with deaf, blind, wheelchair bound, etc. people. I except each person as an equal and give them that respect unless they prove to not deserve it. Just like any “normal” person. My Grandfather wore hearing aids for the last 15 years of his life; without them he was deaf. I always thought he was cool with the way he handled all us hearies. I never thought of him as being deaf.

   2. What do you now think about deafness? If your views changed, how have they changed, and why? As I said in question #1, deafness is just what it is : a person who can’t hear. Hopefully that’s their only abnormality. My views have change in the last 30 years to realize that there is a huge wonderful world of people who can’t hear, who are proud to be deaf, accept their situation, and live life. I have encountered deaf and hearing people who are bums also. Those people who feel the world owes them something, who feels they are special, in the wrong way to me, and who are totally me, me, me people. I wish them well…from a distance.

   3. Assuming you’re now encyclopedic about Cued Speech, what do you wish you had been told when you first learned about it? My wife and I had been to a few sign language classes and we were still walking around with this thick book trying to sign to our deaf 21/2-3 year old son. When we were told about this system by Ms. Barbara Lee, the schools deaf coordinator, my wife saw value and said yes we would like to attend a workshop. Dr. Orin Cornett, Cued Speech’s inventor, taught a weekend class in New Orleans. We were exposed to the entire system in about 12 hours and left there feeling pretty sure that this would work. If someone had told me that in a few months that I would be able to talk to my deaf son and say/cue any word or sound that I could make, I would have said “Yeah…Right!” But they would have been right, I learned, I practiced at work, cued signs in the car, etc. Tate picked it up so fast it was amazing. I can still see him smirk or the question mark on his face when I would miscue a word, but he never laughed, to loud, at me. The system was a God send for us, we feel we made the right decision. Beside the fact that the cued speech system, was teaching language and reading skills, it, with speech therapy, was teaching the deaf person to speak. That to me, second to Tate being an excellent reader and a good student, was a great thing. I have since learned that deaf people who were raised orally and/or with signs can also speak, but most prefer not to. Thank you all for using your voice when you talk to me. I have met and first hand seen the dedication of the parents, speech pathologist, speech therapist, teaching professionals, both hearing & deaf, that have dedicated their lives to deaf people. To all of them I say thank you, job well done. No one told me that my son would grow into such an independent young man and want to be part of the deaf community also. Well, that happened, he met other signers, met his future wife Sarah, learned to sign ASL, and went to Gallaudet Univ. in DC. There he thrived, learned, and graduated. He made lifelong friends, was class of 03’s President, Homecoming King, joined a fraternity, and worked a year as a recruiter for the university. He is now a deaf advocate, a photographer, a married man, and a wonderful young man. I hope you get to meet him.

   4. Do you have any funny stories about learning to cue or trying to explain Cued Speech to others? At the CS class we went to with Dr. Cornett he convinced me that this system would work for me. I remember one of the first things he wanted everyone to tell him their name and he would cue it. I decided to give him, a challenge and when my turn came I told him “Ickabod Shillspinski”. I knew that would stump him. Ha! He cued it as easily as he did Bob Bell’s name before me. Little did I know that our family would become one of “The Cued Speech” families. We attended several family workshops, cue camps, organized and put on Camp Cue Orleans, Iva became a certified CS teacher, a transliterator, and a CS promoter. Tate was “used” as a CS promoter from about four years old. He’s been part of lots of show & tells, and was always very good at his job. Okay, okay, one more funny story,,, I have lots, I am Tate’s dad, and if you know Tate you understand what I mean. Once when he was like 5 or 6, Iva was correcting a behavior event and she made the statement to me that “ she told Tate what to do, but it goes in one eye and out the other”. A take off of an old saying that said “in one ear & out the other”. When you put together the book of funny stories, let me know.

2. Hilary Franklin
   February 24th, 2009 at 11:30 am

   Thanks, Mr. “Ickabod” for your answers…wow, very lengthy and detailed… I’m glad you’re part of our cueing “family”!

3. Valerie Ball
   February 26th, 2009 at 4:29 pm

   Hi my name is Valerie Ball, I am a ASL student at Kent State University Ashtabula. I found your article while I was serching for an essay assignment. I have to find an article and write 5 sentences about it. I am in my second semester. I answered your questions.

   1. I first knew about sign language when I transfered to West Main Elementary in 5th Grade. My teacher had a daughter that was deaf, I never met her, but my teacher Mrs.Troust taught us the Pledge of Alligence in Sign. After that I wanted to learn as much as I could. I used to beg my parents for ASL books, but we didn’t have the money. When I became older and realized that KSUA offered classes. I really wanted to learn, so I am. My professor, Mrs. Madeson is deaf. My thoughts changed completely, I never realized how complex ASl is, but I also realized that I want to become a teacher or interpreter.

   2. I realized that Deaf people are no different then us in 5th grade.

   3. I have never heard of Cued Speech. So I can’t really answer the last couple questions. Sorry.

   Thank you for your time.

4. Aimee Taylor
   February 27th, 2009 at 10:57 pm

   First, I’d like to say thanks for being in the “hot seat” this past weekend by introducing yourself at the Cued Speech workshop in Tampa.

   Who are you?

   I am the parent of a child who has pervasive language problems. I noticed something was wrong at 17 months. Now, at 35 months, I still have no answers and am frustrated. I know my child’s audiologist says her hearing loss is mild at worst but can not rule out a sensorineural loss in one ear. Other theories have been proposed such as PDD-NOS, apraxia, APD, etc. I know my child is sensitive to loud noises and does not seem to understand or orient to spoken language consistently. When presented with a visual object or cue, she seems to “get” the oral request. I worked with her using ASL for about a year and she picked up about 75 signs but she does not use them anymore. I have not been able to provide her with a consistent language base in ASL since I don’t know ASL very well and since she does not have exposure to ASL in school. Her speech is very difficult to understand and she has been slow to acquire expressive speech.

   Why are you reading this? Why do you care about us, our blogs on WeCue, and Cued Speech in general?

   Late last year, I was researching apraxia and cued methods of therapy and found this website comparing these methods – http://www.latrobe.edu.au/hcs/projects/preschoolspeechlanguage/cas.html
   At the same time, I was lucky enough to have found USF’s Cued Speech Initiative with Dr. Krause. After I took the workshop in November and after I found out more about Cued Speech, I am convinced that this is the way to give my child a visual means of understanding English and a motoric method of expressing language regardless of her ultimate diagnosis. I took the workshop again because I need more practice and understanding of cued speech.

   1. What did you think about deafness prior to having a family member, friend, or colleague who is deaf? (Be honest.)

   To be honest, I never really thought about it much. I did have a deaf individual in my workplace once. When I tried to communicate with him, he used ASL. I didn’t know any ASL at the time. Needless to say, we didn’t communicate very well at all. I asked other colleagues who sat near to him how they communicated with him. My recollection is that they didn’t communicate with him very much. I asked my colleagues if emailing him would work as a communication medium i.e. can he read? They didn’t seem very positive about that method either but I am sure that he could read. He was the adult child of the owner of the company. In retrospect, I am struck by the isolation and dependence of his situation, at least in the workplace.

   2. What do you now think about deafness? If your views changed, how have they changed, and why?

   When I think of deafness now, I tend to think about a cultural war which was totally foreign to me prior to having a child with difficulty. My questions were, “Would my child be accepted into deaf culture? If my child were accepted into deaf culture, would I lose the ability to impact her cultural and communicate values and beliefs that are important to me to pass on to my child? Would I be able to become fluent in another language in which I had no method for immersion but my child had full immersion in school?”
   When I first began researching communication options from an educational standpoint, I was deterred by how many private deaf educational institutions won’t consider having a hearing child in their school. I understand that deaf persons don’t want deafness to be associated with cognitive or other special needs. Deaf persons are smart and constantly have to battle a stigma of low intelligence in this audiophillic world. But, parental choices become even more limited when a visual form of language is limited only to deaf persons – i.e. ASL/Cued Speech is only for deaf persons. Everyone else must make do with auditory information.
   The public schools are a big proponent of this view. There were quite a number of public school educators as this most recent workshop. Over lunch, I was struck by how surprised some were that you are so intelligent. I think about Cued Speech for you and wonder, if your parents had used ASL or an oral method instead, the lack of English language would not have made you any less intelligent. But, educators impression of you may have been that you are not intelligent by virtue of lack of English language skills. Their attitude makes me more determined than ever to offer a visual language model for my child. I believe that that language model is the one I am most fluent in – English via Cued Speech. When I suggested that I would like Cued Speech for my child in public education and marveled at some other programs across the country, they, of course, suggested that I move. Thus, despite being amazed at how intelligent you are, their first response was not me, not here, not happening.

   3. When you first heard about Cued Speech, what was your initial reaction? (Be honest.)
   At first, I wasn’t too sure given the above websites’ summary of cued speech with apraxic children. They claim that it may be too cognitively challenging a system for children with CAS. After the workshop and learning more about Cued Speech, I am completely impressed and all I can say is “Wow.” I think what they mean is that the English language is cognitively challenging.

   4. Assuming you’re now encyclopedic about Cued Speech, what do you wish you had been told when you first learned about it?
   For me, there aren’t too many blanks I wish had been filled in. I also wish there were more testimonials from parents or more research about cueing with hearing children who have other problems such as apraxia, PDD-NOS, etc. I also wonder how Cued Speech could be incorporated into Verbal Behavior or Discrete Trial Training type therapies for autism.

   5. Do you have any funny stories about learning to cue or trying to explain Cued Speech to others?
   I don’t have any funny stories yet since I am just beginning. I will relate that I had a “Cued Speech” dream not too long ago. I tend to think of it as being similar to the “noodle/kung fu” dream in “Kung Fu Panda.” Does it indicate my destiny?

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